Work Text:
They are back home, and there’s sweet remnants of coffee and two mid-open books in the kitchen’s table when Robin says, “I have always lived there, I think.”
And it’s a bit melancholic but also mysterious and Sanji only thinks it suits her very well. A pretty charming being, Robin-chan was.
“Here?” he slightly yelps in jar but keeps on the dishwashing anyway.
Because Robin-chan was just as secret as the hidden ruins she loved, and sometimes just as lonely, too. But for all the sadness she held, she also was a comforting presence to be around and smiled much more than she used to, more soft and true. A small change, most people wouldn’t even catch, but Sanji does and can only deem it as nice and good. It still is a long path to go before completely getting used to her more talkative, trusting side but yeah…nice and good.
“On the ocean,” she tells him. “I am glad it’s brighter now. ‘never thought it could be so beautiful.”
His chuckle is gentle and he takes a seat next to her after putting down his stained apron, offering her yet another cup of coffee while he is on it. She giggles and the small sound makes him blush beneath the smoke coming from his fresh lightened cigarette.
The young boy also thinks a little, thinks of a certain obnoxious prison cell, and thinks even strongly about the hopeful escape sea’s flows had granted him back then, “I lived there for a long time, too. But I guess some things have changed.”
He can say that much, and reflecting about it brings a little warmth - he was no longer working his cooking skills with that shitty old man he loves so dearly, he owes so infinitely, but in a thousand adventures with the sunlight crew he adores just as much.
She nods mellowly, “They have.” And also adds a little after. “I am satisfied how it turned out, aren’t you?”
Seagulls are merrily chanting outside the kitchen and Sanji is just cheer about how chill both of them can be right now, as the waves keep hitting the ship’s hull with fierce, and even though he knows storms will come -they always do- he also is more than confident they will overcome it all, all the thunder and all the fret. And so, he only sighs:
“Yeah…wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world,” yet another salty breeze drifts in between the kitchen’s open window as he grumbles, “Marimo still better cease copying that rubber bastard and stop stealing all the ships’ sake though. Or else I’ll crush his balls.”
And Robin-chan laughs.
Sanji does remember it. He does remember Robin’s words that day, and for a stupid reason he simply does not want to think about, it makes him cry. First a little and then a lot and then for longer than he wants to. But it doesn’t stop.
Because, he knows and always has known -always has fully understood what secret resolve had made her leave them back then, on the city of water and masks- only now he understands even better.
See – the young cook has been raised by a very special pirate gentleman to become a knight at heart, and knights do sacrifice everything for those they love and they do so unconditionally, and without any tear of regret shed.
That’s what he keeps hammering at his stupid of a brain as the cold carriage keeps carrying him away from is captain’s screams – he is a knight who has never been quite a stranger to the way of sacrifice and he does not regret a thing.
But knights also are not supposed to lie, and the painful look in Nami-san’s pretty eyes and Luffy’s dark ones do hurt, and cut way deeper than any of his knives, any of his kicks ever could.
(He was right about one thing though; while the storm does come ugly, his crew does defeat it in good old strawhats’ chaotic fashion, and when he returns to the sea’s laughing waves Robin beams in another of her soft giggles:
“I am happy you choose to sail those flows with us again.”)